The beat of my Heart
by iheartHnC
Summary: House can t live without Cuddy. This story is about House s pursuit to find her and seek forgiveness HUDDY FOREVER!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Okay I just want to say that this is my first attempt at a fanfiction. **

** I didn`t think I could write one, but I was so inspired by maxthegirl (allthingsdecent) writing that I thought I would give it a shot on here. Please be advise that no where have I said I am a good writer. I am just a person who misses Lisa Cuddy/Edelstein so I come up with stories in my head about where she might be. **

**I don`t own House or its characters, although I do care much more about how they are written than apparently Fox or DS does. **

**Leave some reviews and tell me what you think!**

Chapter 1

It had taken Lisa Cuddy exactly 3 months to get her life back together after House crashed his car through her house as well as her life. The day after the crash she handed in her resignation letter to the board and never looked back. The board of course understood her resignation because they had after all, seen what had happened on the news the night before, and read it in the newspaper this morning.

So Cuddy packed up what was left of her house and her life and she moved on from Princeton.

Once the news had spread that Lisa Cuddy was officially on the job market, job offers started coming in left and right. Out of 10 offers Cuddy received, she finally picked her top 3. It was between Boston General, Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and Duke University Hospital. Boston General was too close to Princeton she thought, and Cedar- Sinai was too far from her mother and sister. So she finally decided on Duke. Located in Durham, North Carolina it is right outside of the Capital city of Raleigh and just an hour plane ride from Philadelphia, where Arlene lives.

Duke University Hospital was a lot different then PPTH. For one, PPTH was a small hospital with only about 300 beds. At Duke University Hospital there were at least 600 beds. At PPTH Lisa Cuddy was a big fish in small pond, here she was a small fish in a big pond. Here Cuddy was one of 5 Dean of Medicines that ran every department in the hospital. Her primary responsibilities included the departments of Radiology, Pediatrics, Endocrinology, Pathology, and Hematology.

Once Cuddy got the job at Duke, she bought a new house with a big backyard for Rachel to play in and she arranged her work hours so she could be home at night with Rachel. Cuddy even hired a new nanny, a young pediatric nurse, who also worked at the hospital.

When Cuddy left Princeton she also left Wilson and obviously House. When she moved, Wilson wanted her new phone number, address and work email. She gave him none of them, fearing that one day House would go through Wilson`s address book (like he always did) and find her. She did however give Wilson a generic email address , and told him that would be the only way he could contact her. If Cuddy needed to talk to him then she would call him. As far as Cuddy was concerned she had to end her relationship with Wilson just to stay away from House.

During the 2 years after Cuddy left Princeton, she did however still have some contact with Wilson, they normally traded e-mails back and forth once every couple months. One day late at night Cuddy, who had just put Rachel to bed was sitting at her dinning room table paying some bills, when she noticed a new email from Wilson. The subject of the email read _"_**URGENT PLEASE READ LISA"**

"_Thats weird"_ Cuddy thought, Wilson never uses subject lines in his normal emails. Slowly Cuddy rolled her mouse over the link and clicked it, curious as to what the email contained. Slowly she read,

**Lisa,**

**Can I please have your number? This is an emergency and I really need to talk to you.**

**Love,**

**Wilson**

"_Nice try House"_, Cuddy thought. But still intrigued at what it could be, Cuddy decided to respond knowing damn well it was probably House on the other end.

"**Wilson"**

**I`ll give you my number, if you give me yours.**

**-Lisa**

She wrote, Not five minutes after she hit send, a reply came back.

**You have my number Lisa! its the same as its always been! **

**Please Call Now.**

Now Cuddy was perplexed, _what could it be?_ She thought. What was so important that Wilson needed to talk to her right at this VERY moment. With a sigh of frustration she picked up the phone and dialed the all too familiar number of Wilson`s Cell Phone. It rang 3 times as Cuddy held her breath _"please god don`t let House pick up please,_" she thought.

"Hello" came Wilson`s voice on the ear piece. "Wil… Wilson, its Cuddy" she practically choked out. "Lisa, o god i`m so glad you called. How are you? Where are you? How's Rachel?" Wilson asked. "Wilson, you said it was urgent that I called so here I am, what's wrong?"

"House" Wilson whispered. "Wilson I don`t care I…" "Lisa" Wilson interrupted. "House is in a coma, he had some complications from surgery and they are not sure if he is going to make it. I just thought you should know." Cuddy bit her lip, hesitated and finally against all of her will, asked "surgery for what?"

"Amputation, he was having severe leg pain again last week and we did an MRI which revealed another blood clot in the leg, near the damage muscle tissue. The surgeon believed the only way to prevent a heart attack or stroke from occurring was to amputated the leg. Without the amputation House only had days to live. With no one there to make the call, I made the decision to amputate."

"Does he know?" Cuddy asked.

"He knows, we woke him up after surgery to tell him, he took it pretty bad and his BP started spiking so we thought it would be better to put him in a medically induced coma for the time being to get him stable." On the other end of the phone Cuddy was silent.

"Lisa are you still there?" Wilson asked. "Yes, sorry I`m here, well it sounds like you made the right call Wilson, I`m sorry but I have to go, I have a early meeting tomorrow morning. Let me know if House makes it," and with that Cuddy hung up the phone.

What she told Wilson was true, she did have an early meeting tomorrow yet she still didn`t move from her spot. Cuddy kept staring at the phone like it was some foreign object. "_House had his leg amputated_." she told herself. That thought seemed to be so impossible for her to understand. Yet still in some sense it also brought her relief, why? she didn`t know.

**Chapter 2 is already written so should I post it? **


	2. Chapter 2

**3 Months Later... **

House had recovered from the initial of shock of the amputation. Knowing unfortunately that it was the only way he could have lived. Just because that was the case, didn`t mean he had to liked the decision, but he had no choice but to respect it. Wilson called in a favor and got House into rehab at Walter Reed Army Hospital, which had the best physical therapy in the country for prosthetic legs. House`s life now consisted of physical therapy 5 days a week. Every day House was reminded of what it meant to be a hero. What it meant to literally give your life for your country. His group therapy sessions were with 5 other guys all of whom had lost legs in Afghanistan and all of whom were a lot younger than he was. It definitely put things into perspective for House. It gave him time to think and time to analyze his life. Wilson came to visit every other weekend, always encouraging House that once he got out of here his life would go back to normal. That is what got House thinking, what was normal anyway?

After House was discharged from Walter Reed he went back to princeton, but refused to go to work. The embarrassment of having to walk into the hospital with everyone knowing he had lost his leg made it all the more difficult to try to get better. He didn`t want to work, he didn`t want to act like he was fine, he just wanted his damn leg back.

After three weeks of sleeping on Wilson`s couch, he had made his decision. He wanted his life to mean something. For the past 3 months he had been surrounded by men who had chosen to sacrifice everything for something they believed in and surprisingly enough they were at peace with what had happened to them. House wanted to feel the same about his life, he wanted peace since he was no longer in pain. But what would it take for him to find some peace?

**CUDDY**, he thought. Every night his mind drifted to Cuddy, where she was, what she was doing, how old Rachel would have been. God he missed her. It has been exactly 836 days since he last saw her. It felt like a lifetime even though in reality it had only been two and half years. It was at that exact moment he realized he needed to see Cuddy again. He wanted to see Cuddy again.

The next month House did nothing but look for Cuddy. He went through every single phonebook on the east coast, Googled her name at least 100 times, stalked her old house and harassed her neighbors about what they knew and finally, when all of that failed he looked through Wilson`s computer. Each search led to a dead end. House was frustrated, _Did Cuddy move to a different country?_ Because that was the only place House could think of.

**Then…**

One day an idea popped into his head, _"God I`m such an idiot"_. He thought. Opening his computer he googled the phrase "Natalie Thompsen, Lisa Cuddy" House scrolled down the results and there at the bottom of the 3rd search page he found what he was looking for. As he clicked the link, a form, titled "Relocation of Adoptive Parent" opened onto the screen and there before House`s eyes was the breakthrough he was looking for. He read each line carefully, trying to make sure he did not to miss any word, when his eyes stumbled upon a something that caught his eye. It read "Lisa Cuddy relocated from Princeton, New Jersey to Durham, North Carolina with adoptive daughter Rachel Cuddy, DOB 12/21/08." Although there was no current address listed, It was just the lead that House needed.

House didn`t know much, but he knew Cuddy was in Durham, N.C. Just that thought alone was hard to wrap his mind around. For the life of him House could not imagine Cuddy in the south working with those "southern bells." Cuddy was the farthest women from a southern bell that he had ever met.

A series of thoughts went through House`s mind at that moment. _"Alright so Cuddy was in Durham, that wasn`t that far. But where was she working? She would have had to have found a job there or she would`ve have moved there. Where there any hospitals around there?"_ House wondered. Then the answer became apparent. "Duke!" House practically screamed to no one in particular. Of course Cuddy would take a job at Duke, it was one of the best medical teaching hospitals as well as schools in the country and would be a huge promotion from PPTH. With that House started to study their website, looking for any sign that would link Duke to Cuddy.


End file.
